If I want to look at semi-naked women on stage, I prance around my bathroom mirror singing Jacques Brel songs for an hour.

My generation's equivalent is a night out at a hot club featuring DJ Tiesto, afterwards piling into someone's Hummer for a skinny dip in the jacuzzi.

Same concept, less plastic boobs.

So carefully, I built up my coterie of international friends here in South Florida.

I had Cuban friends, I had French friends, Chilean friends, Brazilian friends, Swedish friends, Colombian friends, Kenyan friends, Trinidadian friends, Japanese friends, friends from almost every region in the US.

I even dated a young Haitian lad once, and he introduced me to some of his friends too.

On and on, a little United Nations of my own, but with more backbone and less corruption.

Everywhere I have gone in life, I have gathered my own circle of friends, happy to spend much time in their company, and hopefully, they in mine.

My mother used called me The Pied Piper, because I've always had this ability to meet many different people from all walks of life, and have them around me.

But you'll notice that most of the people I mentioned above, come FROM somewhere other than Florida. Like me.

It's an important point.

You see, because this is the ultimate transient State, oftentimes, people move as quickly out, as they did in.

For a few years, my circle of friends just kept getting bigger. I partied hard. I needed to get it out of my system, I told my perplexed parents.

Lovingly, they understood, and since I was born a good girl, they even encouraged me.

(Let that be a lesson to you would-be bad boys and girls out there -- you'd die if you knew what parents let good kids get away with, just because they like to see you enjoy yourself for a change)

Then, I decided to enter Medical School, and Kaplan courses, tutors, volunteerism, all got in the way of more frivolous pursuits -- though I'd never describe my friends as merely that.

2001 arrived, and I discovered the internet. Big time.

This medium has introduced to me to SO many wonderful and diverse people, which I'd have to live a dozen lifetimes, and travel much wider than even I have to date, to reunite the same group of wonderful people I speak to daily, with just a click of a mouse.

Slowly, unbearably, inch by inch, my social circle started dwindling.

I didn't return calls.

Invitations to diners prives went unresponded to.

Club dates went undanced with.

In short, I disappeared.

But something else was happening, beyond my control.

My friends just started leaving South Florida, at first in trickles, then in droves. I was heartsick, since I couldn't control people's destinies, even if I had wanted to.

They came from somewhere else, just like I did, but when their grants, their scholarships, their daddy's money ran out, I was left minus yet more one good pal.

This past 15th January, I lost another great chum -- my last female friend, and neighbour.

She accepted a job in central Florida, and off she went, with my best wishes, but also leaving me with the grand total of:

One friend left.

My Chilean friend, Patricio.

The thing of it is, I've become so accustomed to saying "no thanks" to invites now, more content to spend my nights eating an apple, nose firmly in a book, or laughing with my parents, or here with you, that even poor Patricio gets the bum's rush whenever he dares suggest a night out.

All my life, I've had a close group of loving friends around me, and today, I find myself unwilling, in the nicest way possible, to gather more chums around me any more.

I, like XWL, live in a town full of people who just won't stay! Although some of them do...I view it as having friends all over America I can come see whenever! And have taken advantage of this...

Victoria, this blog is your new magnet; most of us can't have a cuban libre with you, but we're here with a nod-and-a-wink pretty often! And naturally, if you come to Ann Arbor, you may crash as you will...

While I agree that there is a natural transition as one ages that reduces the quantity (not the quality) of friendships there is definitely an "internet effect" where more time is spent alone with a computer rather than out socializing with friends. One needs to combat this tendency by actually calling friends and getting together!

Victoria, hurry up and make new friends before Patricio returns to Chile to meet his new Presidenta!

What Jose said.Such friends you have here! Chances are really poor though, that actually (sing "getting to know you" - here) socializing together, hearing the voice, laughter and experiencing daily life with each other is unlikely. The Internet Lament. We have our place, put us in it.

While I agree that there is a natural transition as one ages that reduces the quantity (not the quality)

I know where you're going with this, because my mother worries about it all the time.

of friendships there is definitely an "internet effect" where more time is spent alone with a computer rather than out socializing with friends. One needs to combat this tendency by actually calling friends and getting together!

Yes.

This thing we call the internet has changed our socialising forever.

It's not like crack either, unless you live in a crackhouse.

It's legal, it's on all the time, and it draws you like Neiman-Marcus blow-out sale.

Victoria, hurry up and make new friends before Patricio returns to Chile to meet his new Presidenta!

What Jose said.Such friends you have here! Chances are really poor though, that actually (sing "getting to know you" - here) socializing together, hearing the voice, laughter and experiencing daily life with each other is unlikely. The Internet Lament. We have our place, put us in it.

Pshaw!

You know how I view my online chatting with friends?

Like you coming to my salon every day, and we chat about anything under the sun.